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It’s time to get out the vote and make your voice heard, and we aren’t letting you get away with having any excuse not to hit the polls!

On Tuesday, November 5, VCU Transportation is providing FREE shuttle service to the polling stations from 9am to 5:00pm! RamtheVote stops will be located at Cabell Library and the Larrick Student Center. Each stop will be serviced approximately every 30 minutes.

Schedule:

First stop – George Washington Carver School, 1110 Leigh Street

Second stop – Dominion Place, 1025 West Grace Street

Third stop – Main Library, 101 East Franklin Street

Return to Cabell and Larrick Student Center

If you are registered by your residence hall, check below to find your polling place:

VCU’s 10 campus dormitory locations are dispersed among four polling precincts in the city of Richmond. Here is a list of each dorm and the precinct it is in. If you live in Johnson Hall, for example, you are in Precinct 206 and you vote at Dominion Place, 1025 W. Grace St. (The links will take you to a map of the precinct.)

Voter registration deadline is coming up on Tuesday, October 15. Make sure that you do not miss this important deadline, if you want your vote to matter in the gubernatorial election in Virginia on Nov. 5.

First, it’s important to know what it takes to be eligible to vote. Eligibility is based on state-by-state regulations, so be sure to know Virginia’s before registering. In Virginia, to be eligible to vote, you must:

1. Be a resident of Virginia

2. Be a U.S. citizen

3. Be 18 or older

4. Must have rights restored, if you are a felon

5. Not declared mentally incompetent by a court of law

There’s a lot that goes into the process of voting, starting with registration. While at first glance it seems overwhelming, there are simple ways to get registered. Continue reading →

“VCU votes” is a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote campaign at Virginia Commonwealth University. This campaign aims to turn out the vote at VCU for the election on November 5, 2013 and to inform students about the policy positions of the candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

The campaign combines various initiatives on campus. You can follow the campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Use the hashtags #vcuvotes and #uncleram to join the discussion on Twitter. Our videos will be posted on YouTube.

Nov. 6, 2012, was a big day for voters across the nation, and Virginia voters played a key role in the outcome. Candidates Mitt Romney (R) and Barack Obama (D) were evenly matched in most polls preceding the election, but the president ultimately pulled ahead with 303 electoral votes to Romney’s 206 (Florida results are still being counted). Obama’s victory depended on wins in key swing states like Ohio and Virginia; in fact, most news stations began predicting the president’s win as Ohio polls came in in his favor. Continue reading →

Election Day 2012 witnessed a massive turnout of young voters that was paramount in deciding the election, especially through the swing states. With the help of the #VCUVotes get-out-the-vote campaign, many VCU students were encouraged to take some time at the polls to decide America’s next president. As an incentive for voting, students who showed their “I voted” sticker to the VCU Honors Social Media and the Presidential Race class table outside the Sweet Frog Monroe Park location were invited to enter a raffle to win one of five free Sweet Frog yogurt cards. So, congratulations to the following winners! Continue reading →

On this blog, you can find useful comparisons on where President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney stand on foreign policy, education and jobs, the environment and social issues. This information can be a great help in making your decision. Just click on the headers above. Continue reading →

As seen in the 3rd presidential debate a few weeks ago, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama seem to agree more on foreign policy than disagree. Some of the topics that they agreed on were swearing off U.S. intervention in Syria, drone strikes, pulling troops from Afghanistan by 2014, as well as cracking down on China’s neglection of trade. However, one key issue that they did disagree on was military spending which impacts the world view of both candidates. Continue reading →

If either Romney or Obama is elected, there will most likely not be change in how the US uses drone technology in the Middle East. Because of the intended yet unsuccessful “secretness” of the Drone Wars, politicians sparsely talk them about. However, drones were brought up during the presidential foreign policy debate. Both Obama and Romney believe drones are an effective technology that should continue to be implemented to combat terrorism. However, there is a lot of evidence that drones are extremely ineffective and have killed large numbers of civilians. Independent groups claim there have been around 800 civilian deaths from drone strikes, out of the almost 3000 total killed.
President Obama has ordered 283 drone strikes in Pakistan, six times more than President George W. Bush. Obama has sent drones to at least six countries and used them to kill a U.S. citizen without trial. Under Obama’s administration, the Pentagon has sold drones to more than 60 countries. Continue reading →

It has been fall for almost a month. Has anyone noticed? When I was a child, my Halloween costume consisted of Long John Thermal Underwear, a black sweater, black jeans, green fake hair to cover my ears, and a pointed hat. Together my mom put that on me and said, “You are the Wicked Witch of the West.” This year as a prime example how none of those fall/winter clothes were needed. I could have put on a plaid blue dress and red flip-flops, this time calling myself Dorothy. No, I have not moved states since that one wicked Halloween but what has changed is the climate. Continue reading →

Foreign policy plays an important role in the minds of people as they have to select a candidate who has the policies to handle such an important aspect which affects everyone’s lives and the issues surrounding Afghanistan certainly plays an important role in foreign policy. The Afghanistan war is going on for twelve years and the combat is supposed to end by 2014 (Crawford, 2012, para.28). The presidential candidates have many different issues in the foreign policy realm but what is the stance of Obama and Romney relating to Afghanistan and what has Obama achieved in these last 4 years regarding Afghanistan. Continue reading →

During this presidential campaign we hear the same main topics being discussed: the economy, education, and foreign policy. But the environment remains a key issue not being given enough attention. The environment is a very important issue that needs to be discussed, due to all the vital resources that we obtain from the environment, and the ever-growing threat of global warming. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have two very different views on how they believe the federal government should regulate the environment. Continue reading →

Affirmative action has been in place since President Lyndon B Johnson’s term in 1965. It was enforced during a time of racial discrimination, in which employers could deny someone a job based on their race. Today, however, it has expanded to stop discrimination based on gender, religion, race or sexual orientation in the workplace and education. Continue reading →

President Barack Obama inherited a very weak economy (Lynch, 2012). Nonetheless, under President Barack Obama, there have been 31 straight months of job growth added to the private sector. There were a total of 5.2 million jobs that have been added to the private sector (DPCC). 114,000 jobs were created last month, which let the unemployment rate drop below 8% (Liptack, 2012). Recently, Obama visited Ohio to let the people know of the success of the auto industry bailout. The auto bailout saved around 155,000 jobs in the state of Ohio, which also added around 13,000 jobs that were related to the auto industry. Continue reading →

As college students, the presidential candidates’ viewpoints on tuition and Pell Grants directly affect us. Barack Obama was interviewed on MTV yesterday and talked about such issues. He said, “And we’re going to reward those schools that do a good job providing good value for their students while keeping tuition low, and we’ll stop directing federal aid to those colleges and universities that are loading up their students with debt” (Wallace). Continue reading →

Mitt Romney opposes the extension of tax credits for wind production (FactChecking the Hofstra Debate, 2012). For example, he intends to end the Production Tax Credit, which is a subsidy for wind energy production that is scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. There is truth in his statement that wind and solar energy production cannot “power the economy”: All renewable energy, including hydropower and biofuels, constituted 9% of the nation’s energy consumption in 2011. Although wind power production has doubled since 2008, it still only constituted 13% of all renewable energy sources generated in 2011. In summary, wind power accounted for a very small percentage of the United States’ overall energy supply (FactChecking the Hofstra Debate, 2012). Continue reading →

According to Politifact, President Barack Obama promised to introduce a comprehensive immigration bill within his first year of office. Politifact’s “Obameter” says that he failed to do that. CNN says that he has been criticized by both parties for not addressing the issue while his party was in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Continue reading →

VCU’s 10 campus dormitory locations are dispersed among four polling precincts in the city of Richmond. Here is a list of each dorm and the precinct it is in. If you live in Johnson Hall, for example, you are in Precinct 206 and you vote at Dominion Place, 1025 W. Grace St. (The links will take you to a map of the precinct.)

Here is a Google Fusion Table map of the data. The red markers represents dormitories that are in Polling Precinct 206; the yellow markers, Precinct 213; the green marker, Precinct 505; and the blue markers, Precinct 607. Click on a marker for more information.

We’ve had more winners from our drawing for “Uncle Ram”/VCU Votes T-shirts. One was Madhavi Liyanage; and the other was somebody who gave us only an email, not a name. We’ve notified both winners by email — so we’re hoping to hear from you. When we do, we’ll make arrangements to get you your free T-shirt.

Today is the last day you can register to vote with us. We will have our campaign table in the VCU Student Commons between 10 a.m. and noon as well as 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. The filing deadline to register is Monday. We will also again raffle our cool “Uncle Ram” T-shirts and send you into the weekend with some free candy. Come see us! Continue reading →

The Dean of Student Affairs at VCU, Dr. Reuben Rodriguez, stopped by our campaign table in the Student Commons today. Here’s what he had to say about the importance of voting (video by Alix Hines, Caitlin Puffenberger and Emily Satchell):

We have a winnah! Actually, two winners — Austin Ollivant and Eric O’Neal. They both win Uncle Ram / “VCU Votes” T-shirts. Their names were drawn this morning from the raffle tickets that passers-by filled out and dropped in our class “ballot box” when we were at the Commons yesterday.

We’ll conduct another drawing after we staff the tables in the Commons on Wednesday and on Friday. Still time to win! (But you can’t win if you don’t play. So stop by the table and fill out an entry slip.)

We are moving our campaign offline this week, meaning we’ll be in the VCU Student Commons to register students to vote. Come by our stand, eat a candy and sign up for a chance to win one of our awesome “Uncle Ram” T-shirts! We also have handouts with information on the standpoints of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on important issues.

Welcome to our campaign website to turn out the vote on November 6 at VCU!

This is a nonpartisan campaign of the “Social Media and the Presidential Race” course by Dr. Marcus Messner and Professor Jeff South at Virginia Commonwealth University. We will officially launch our campaign on Monday, October 8, in the University Student Commons at VCU. Stay tuned, “like” us on Facebook and “follow” us on Twitter! Use hashtags #vcuvotes and #uncleram to join the discussion on Twitter.